Jamie Oliver wins $100,000 TED grant

Jamie Oliver was yesterday awarded the 2010 TED Prize for his role in addressing unhealthy diets and reducing British waistlines.

The $100,000 (£60,000) purse that comes with the award will be used to enact a wish that will be unveiled by the Naked Chef on February 10 at the 2010 TED conference in California. The TED community of scientists, designers and other creative people will be invited to support the effort.

"We're thrilled to award the TED Prize to Jamie Oliver,” said TED curator Chris Anderson (a different Chris Anderson from American Wired's editor-in-chief of the same name). “His work directly tackles one of the most distressing issues the world faces ... the obesity epidemic.”

In previous years, the prize has been awarded to three individuals, but the organisers have said that they will make just one award from now on, to avoid diluting the support they can offer.

As well as encouraging home-cooking, Oliver persuaded the British Government to invest in improvements to school dinners. His Feed Me Better campaign gained 270,000 signatures of support, and helped to elicit a pledge from the Government of £840 million over three years to improve school meals.

He also founded the Fifteen Foundation, which trains disadvantaged 18 to 25 year olds as chefs. The project started in London and has been replicated in Cornwall, Amsterdam and Melbourne. In 2003 he was awarded an MBE.

Previous TED prize-winners include Bill Clinton, Bono, scientist E. O. Wilson and writer Dave Eggers. Wishes have ranged from a global network of marine protected areas, an amalgam of the Abrahamic religions into a single Charter for Compassion, and a global search for cosmic company.

Read an interview with Jamie Oliver in which he talks about his involvement in the app economy in the February issue of Wired UK, on sale on January 7. Subscribe here